The voice of literature......VOX LIT

In this section, we ask writers to explain extracts from their own books. A chance to for our authors to learn from each other : An insight into writing not normally available to readers.

Creating atmosphere in a scene

Name of Book: OGG by James Gault

The extract:In this story of time travel, the Great Being Ogg has taken Antonia back in time to somewhere, and she is trying to work out where and when she is.

This time she knew that she herself was different. For one thing, her clothes weren’t right. She couldn’t see them, but she could sense them clinging unnaturally to her. And her skin! It felt as if it were someone else’s. What had Ogg done to her this trip?She wished there was more light, so she could give herself a right good inspection. But they were in a dark, funereal, side street. Tall buildings watched over the solemn blackness, sentinels against the invasion of moonlight. Scattered street lamps cast little puddles of light, tiny candles keeping vigil over secret shadows and subterranean tombs. A hundred metres away, the city was alive. Antonia could imagine she heard the living move busily around town in cars, taxis and buses. But the rumble of the city’s heartbeat faded out before it reached her ears. Only an occasional car horn came to her in an eerie scream. A warm pink glow of activity tried to reach from the civilised main street into the silent darkness, without quite making it to where she was standing, shivering in the summer evening heat.

The explanation:On stage, when the curtain opens and before the actors begin to speak, or often even appear, the director will want to set the atmosphere using the set design and the lighting. Novelists face the same challenge, but they only have written words for tools. How can they create the emotional expectation of the reader with such flimsy and inadequate resources? They can use the description of the setting and the thoughts of the characters. Let’s look at what I try to do in this extract.I begin by using the character Antonia’s thoughts to create a sense of mystery and of uneasiness. She’s in unfamiliar clothes and even her skin feels like someone else's. Ogg has changed her and it doesn’t feel right. She, and the reader, are already suspecting something not so nice is going to happen.Next, I try to reinforce the sense of uneasiness in the description of where they are. Like a film director, I make use of light and darkness to create a chiaroscuro effect to suggest menace. I put the characters in shadow and silence, and underline this by having light and noise in the distance. The only noise I permit them to hear is a ghostly and frightening scream. I’m using these contrasts between the main thoroughfare and the side street to emphasise the sense of danger. I also use temperature and colour, talking of the ‘warm pink’ of the main street, while the character shivers in the side street in spite of the heat of the evening.The reader can expect dark and dangerous occurrences to follow, and in fact they do.

The extract:While she waited, she looked around the reception area. It wasn’t anything like the paper factory, where visitors found themselves hanging around a crowded afterthought of a room furnished with the leftovers from the serious business of production. The space she was in now was dedicated to creating an impression of power and permanence. Vast open areas, tiled walls and floors, large leather sofas that looked lost in the emptiness that surrounded them, bronze wall plaques and sculptures of worthy workers and soldiers– everything was large, heavy and immovable. And colourless! A mass of self-important greys! Whatever went on here was important: momentous decisions were being taken whose effects would be felt for decades if not centuries.

The explanation:If an author only writes what other writers would write, what’s the point? Readers should be shown the world from a perspective different from their own. They should be prompted to think ‘You know, I never thought of it that way’. In a novel, the view presented ought to be unique, whether we are getting the authorial point of view or that of a character. This different point of view can be particularly powerful when describing a setting. One way of presenting a setting in a unique way is to show it through eyes of a character, whose goals, feelings and personality will all affect what the person notices and how they react to it. This is what I am trying to do in the extract.Anna has gone to the office of her aunt, a successful businesswoman, whom she hasn’t seen for a long time, long before she became successful. Anna herself has started a small business and she hopes that her aunt can offer her some practical help. She imagines her aunt’s business is similar to her own, except a little larger. What she finds is not what she expects.The bare bones of the description are that the reception area is a large, colourless space with little furniture and some works of art scattered around – a bit like a half-empty museum. I could have left it at that, but I chose not to. I had other information I wanted to convey. So I have Anna interpreting what she sees, showing how her preconceptions of her aunt are being changed by it, and imbuing her special meaning to every feature. No-one else would see the setting in the same light. Readers may be familiar with such imposing receptions of large businesses, but would they have read all of this into them?Here I am trying to convey not only a sense of the space, but of the interaction of the character with that space. The extract also hints that the help Anna will receive from her aunt is much more than she was expecting.

The explanation:Some readers, and many writers, find books containing grammatical errors a complete turn-off. Readers are entitled to set their own standards for what they choose to read, but in being pedantic about the use of grammar, do they deprive themselves of the chance to experience some exceptional writing? And does fear of making a grammar error inhibit creativity for a writer? Yes to both questions.

What’s the point of grammar? Why can’t we just throw words out in a random order as they come into our head? ‘Me think good idea.’ What’s wrong with that? It’s pretty clear what I meant. If good writing is expressing clearly and concisely what’s in your head, surely this has to be worth a Grade A?

If you look at this month’s extract, I would claim that, even to a grammarian, it’s not too bad. But it’s not grammatically perfect. There are a lot of incomplete sentences. My English teacher would have corrected them. For example, she would have changed Double helping of shapeless sweaters and dirty narrow jeans! to something like: He remembered the double helping of shapeless sweaters and dirty narrow jeans! But the words added to make the grammar perfect don’t tell us anything extra. If you add words to complete all the incomplete sentences in the extract, it becomes long-winded and struggles to hold the reader’s attention.

There are other situations where less than perfect grammar is useful. You might want to portray a character or narrator as poorly educated, or from a particular background, and deliberately insert grammatical errors: Hey, I cook real good, me and you back to my place, what you say? sort of thing.

Another thing about good grammar, especially when long and complex sentences are involved, is that it requires a lot of thought to be given to the construction of the sentences. The result is the writing comes across as considered and thoughtful, not a lot of good if the author is trying to achieve spontaneity. If character or narrators have to share their thoughts as they come to them, best to keep the sentences short and let the grammar slips show through.

​I am not suggesting writers have carte blanche to produce works full of mistakes. But I am suggesting that writers should not be hemmed in by grammar rules. And readers should perhaps realise that bad grammar may be deliberate, and may itself be telling you more than the bare meaning implied by the words. ​Contributed by James Gault

Concise CharacterisationName of Books :Hard Times, by Charles Dickens and Ogg by James GaultThe extracts:The beginning of Dickens’ Hard Times, where we hear Mr Thomas Gradgrind’s speech to the pupils of the school.‘NOW, what I want is, Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else, and root out everything else. You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon Facts: nothing else will ever be of any service to them. This is the principle on which I bring up my own children, and this is the principle on which I bring up these children. Stick to Facts, sir!’ from Hard Times by Charles DickensOgg and Antonia have been transported in time and place to a shady night club in fifties USA.A squat balding fifty year old tuxedo with a cigar stood before them. “You havin’ a good time? I ain’t seen you ‘round here before.”“We’re from out of town,” Ogg drawled, and Antonia choked on her sparkling water.“Well, you sure picked the right place for good entertainment. I’m Harry. Harry Biaggi. This is my joint. D’ya like it?”“Well, yeah, Harry, I do. It’s a real nice place you got here.”“We try to be classy. Howd’ya find us.” Harry snapped his fingers as he said this and a bow-tie appeared and slid a seat under him. He sat down.from Ogg by James GaultThe explanation:If we read the opening few pages of Jane Austin’s Emma we see a common way for authors to introduce characters. Emma’s family, biography and character are presented to us in intimate detail, and before we start her story we feel we know her like a good friend already, and we can sympathise with her successes and failures and feel the delights and angst which follow. For this particular novel, the detailed early establishment of the character is important because the author needs to arm us with the tools to judge Emma.This kind of approach to characterisation is out of fashion now: it slows up the action and needs inspired writing to keep the reader’s attention, and is especially distracting for any but the very main characters.Nowadays, we expect to discover our characters rather than be asked to judge them. We expect to get to know the characters slowly as we read their story. We form first impressions, then we develop these impressions and sometimes we misjudge and need to correct our assessments. The discovery of the characters is as important to us as the development of the plot. The characterisation is drip fed to us, and the personality of each individual has to permeate each part of the story.For protagonists that first impression is of prime importance, while for minor roles it is the only information we get. So we expect the author to imbue our first meetings with the characters with indications of what kind of people they are: by what they say, by what they do or by both. The excerpt from Hard Times is only six short sentences of dialogue, but how much does it tell us about the speaker? He is self-opinionated, he at least claims to be rational, he expects to be listened to and obeyed. He speaks in short sharp sentences, in commands and assertions. No debate is permitted. We don’t know what he looks like, we don’t even know his name, but already we don’t expect we’re going to like him very much.In the second extract, all the elements are employed to create an impression of Mr Biaggi: description, dialogue and actions. All of this is condensed into a short dialogue. Biaggi is presented as middle aged and overweight but well dressed. He has the strong accent of a man from the gutter who has made it to the top – others jump to satisfy his every wish. But he also has an aura of feeling inferior: he is anxious to please and be liked and appreciated. In the novel his is a walk on part, we never meet him again, but he leaves an impression and sets the tone for what follows.The point of both extracts is to note the denseness of the character information which is presented at the same time as the plot is developed. The reader has to work hard to catch all the points, but the ongoing development of the story never flags. This is what I am calling Concise Characterisation. Contributed by James Gault

The Use of Foreshadowing

Name of book: The Redemption of Anna Petrovna by James Gault

The context of the extract:The heroine, Anna Petrovna, has quit her job but she has made a deal with her old boss that allows her to set up a little business she can run from home. She is in her flat, waiting for her fiance to come home from his job so she can tell him what she has arranged. ​ The extract:"She heard the door of the flat open and close. She waited, sipping her tea, turning her back a little to the door so she wouldn’t see him come in. It was a little ritual they had. He would come in, she would pretend not to see him, he would creep up behind her and kiss her gently on the back of the neck, she would purr. She loved this ceremony; it was a tribute to her regal power." ​The explanation:In this little paragraph, I'm creating the atmosphere and the power structure of the relationship between the couple. The little ritual has nothing to do with the plot, we won't hear of it again and it has no significance in the story, but it is a vital clue to what is going to happen. Let me explain!

The key phrase here is 'regal power'. Quite clearly the head of this household is the girl. You should also note that the whole thing is staged, a pretence, encouraged by her. The reader is meant to get the idea that this woman is not only bossy but she is insincere in the relationship. I use the words 'ceremony' and 'tribute' to suggest this insincerity. This ritual both enforces her superiority and gives the man the sense that his role is to please her. The word 'purr' with its associated imagery of a pet cat was chosen to reinforce this role. My purpose is to give the reader the idea that what we have here is not entirely a satisfactory and stable relationship. The girl is in it for her own ends, and she doesn't care too much for the man's feelings or wishes.

Why does the reader need to know this? Because, unsurprisingly, this relationship is doomed and they will break up later in the book. And I want to prime the reader for the subsequent problems the couple will have and the eventual collapse of their marriage.

This is what foreshadowing does: it helps make the subsequent plot development more credible because you have signaled the possibility of that development earlier, and it poses intriguing questions to keep the reader interested. You just have to hope that your readers pick up the signals.